It is well known that simplicity in the mechanical action of a weapon is extremely important. Stories of soldiers dying because their rifles jammed in the mud are notorious, as are the amounts of time which sporting enthusiasts must spend maintaining their weapons. Thus, it is frequently true that a weapon is considered an advance over previous models because it simplifies the action.
Increasingly the cost and trouble of maintaining weapons, both sporting and military, outweighs the actual cost of production. This is yet another reason for seeking simplicity in the action of a weapon.
In addition, air guns present some notable advantages over gunpowder weapons, however, air guns also tend to suffer from the problem of overly complex actions. For example, a typical low end lever-action air gun might generate a muzzle velocity of only 275 FPS (85 m/s), and require half a minute to pump up, even though it has numerous moving parts such as a piston, the lever, the lever arm, block, and so on.
One example of a rapid fire air gun is that manufactured by Shooting Star (www.shootingstargames.com), the action of which is pictured in PRIOR ART FIGS. 6 and 7. It will immediately be seen that this design features a large number of moving parts, detents, feeds and so on. FIGS. 6 and 7 are in fact to be found on that company website, for the use of customers who must take the weapon apart and attempt to figure out which part is broken, which part number corresponds to that part, and then order the part. Notably, the gun appears to be entirely non-magnetic. The part numbers of PRIOR ART FIGS. 6 and 7 are Shooting Star Game company part numbers and are NOT reference numerals of the present invention and are provided for illustrative purposes only.
Various weapons have used magnetic forces in their actions in various manners. However, these weapons all have more or less traditional actions, which use magnetism merely as an adjunct to some form of mechanical action. It does not appear that any reference patent discloses use of a magnet to replace the action, much less use of the magnet in the configuration of the present invention.
It would be preferable to provide an air gun with as few moving parts as possible in the action, preferably none at all. It would further be preferable to provide an air gun having the ability to fire at full automatic, and yet generate, in embodiments, muzzle velocities similar to those of gunpowder weapons.